All the Boys and All the Girls
by PunkPinkPower
Summary: Jayd, Mika, Karen, Emmitt, Miles, and Antonetta have been chosen to protect the earth as Samurai rangers. Gender Swap Power Rangers Samurai.
1. Chapter 1

Notes: In loving memory of Rangers_Romance, whose effervescing presence in my life continues to resonate somewhere in my soul.

It's one of those mornings where, no matter what anyone does, Mika is going to find a way to make it ridiculous and funny.

She's just stuck an apple onto the tip of Karen's samurai sword, and Emmitt looks over at Miles with raised eyebrows. Miles looks back at him with a look that says 'here we go'.

"That doesn't count!" Karen says, her voice going a bit shrill, like it usually does when she's upset with Mika.

"Don't be a sour-puss," Mika teases, whipping her dark brown hair up onto her head in a fresh pony tail.

Karen's dark face goes pink, which on most people means embarrassment, but they've all learned that on Karen it means fury.

Mika sees it. "Okay, we can call it a tie?" She offers with a helpful grin.

Miles jabs Emmitt with his elbow, makes him look over. "Ten bucks on Karen," he says quietly, and Emmitt grins. He always bets on Mika.

"Karen, Mika," a powerful voice calls from the porch, making them both look. "There a problem?"

"She's always a problem," Karen fires hotly, and Mika sticks her tongue out. Sometimes, Emmitt thinks she does this specifically to rile Karen.

Jayd looks between them, her short cropped hair falling into her narrow eyes. "Mika," she says reproachfully, which gets her maybe a bit of a chin dip on Mika's part, "While that was creative, it wasn't the purpose of the exercise." Jayd says carefully, and Karen looks over at Mika with a winning smile. "Karen, it still counts," Jayd lets herself grin a little, and Karen whips her head back to her with an indignant look.

Mika reaches over, takes the apple off of Karen's sword, and takes a loud, crunching bite of it. Karen turns her head slowly to see Mika grinning triumphantly.

"Why, you!" She shouts, swings her sword for Mika's legs. Ready for it, Mika jumps, and dives behind Jayd. They chase each other around their leader once, before Mika runs off into the house giggling with Karen shouting after her.

Jayd blows her bangs off her forehead exasperatedly.

Miles looks over at him. "So, should we just add that to my tab?"

Emmitt grins, pushes Miles lightly on the shoulder, and they all head inside to watch the show.

* * *

By the time Mika and Karen tired each other out, Jayd's ready for a lunch break. Luckily, Antonetta is pulling into the front of the house with her tackle box at about that time.

She's got her fishing lures sticking out of her wild hair again, her shiny gold scarf hanging around her neck and dragging close to the floor.

Jayd catches it, picks it up, uses it to tug at Antonetta playfully. "What'd you bring me?"

Antonetta gives her a happy smile, tugs back on the scarf so that Jayd has to step closer. "You mean what did I bring the person who only eats two types of salt water fish?"

Jayd grins, nods. She tugs at the scarf again.

Antonetta dips her head, gives Jayd that look from under her eyelashes that means she knows what Jayd's up to and isn't playing along right now. She tugs her scarf off her neck and then tosses the pretty tassels over Jayd's shoulder and around her own neck. "What are we working on today?" She asks instead as she goes into the kitchen.

Jayd follows, glancing back at Emmitt and Mika sparing playfully in the living room, the other four rangers all blissfully distracted. "I thought we might do some new symbols," Jayd says, leaning her hip on the counter and watching Antonetta gut the fish she's caught.

She doesn't usually join them for morning practices, instead taking that time to go fishing. She usually shows up around lunch, cooks them all fresh fish, and then participates in the afternoon exercises. Ji disapproves, as she does with a lot of things these days, but Jayd doesn't mind. Antonetta's only really there for her, anyway.

"You could show the others that rope trick you learned," Jayd says, smirking.

Antonetta raises an eyebrow, but doesn't look away from the fish. "Exhibitionist," she accuses.

Jayd smiles. "Prude," she teases back, and then she goes to the refrigerator to grab some fresh veggies for sides.

The smell of frying fish draws the other rangers into the room faster than a summoning symbol.

"You," Miles is telling Antonetta happily, sniffing in the smell of the fish, "you are my favorite person right now."

"I thought I was your favorite person?" Karen pouts, crossing her arms.

Miles gives her a large, dashing smile. "You're always my favorite person."

Karen smiles back happily, goes over to stand next to Miles, and the two of them playfully bump companionable shoulders. Jayd doesn't miss the frown Mika shoots in their direction, or the eye roll she tosses to Emmitt a few moments later. Emmitt looks like he's trying to bite back a laugh.

Jayd pushes herself up onto the counter to wait while the fish finishes cooking. Ji picks that moment to enter the kitchen.

The eyebrow raise and disapproving look is enough to make Jayd feel sheepish and duck her head as she slides down off the counter. "Sorry?"

Ji bristles. "I suppose we're having fish for lunch," she says bracingly, holding onto her walking stick in her regal way, "Again."

Antonetta takes no offense. "I know how much you like it," she says, shooting their mentor a sweet smile over her shoulder as she dumps the fish onto a large serving plate. "I made you extra."

Ji makes a face, purses her lips, and only Jayd knows her well enough to know she's actually amused.

"You're in my seat," Karen is telling Mika, who looks up at her innocently.

"I don't see your name on it," Mike says back, looking around curiously.

Karen ignores her. "Move," she commands, jostling her head to the seat next to Emmitt where Mika usually sits.

"Um," Mika says, putting a finger to her chin thoughtfully, "Let me see. No."

"Now," Karen repeats, as everyone else comes over to the table.

"Ask me nicely," Mika demands in return, reclining back into the chair.

Karen makes a sweet face, sets the plate of fish she'd carried over down on the table, and leans right into Mika's face. "Never," she says, and she kicks the chair backwards with her foot.

Mika flails in a horribly ungraceful manner as she smatters back to the floor with a squeak. Emmitt laughs joyfully, and Antonetta claps.

Ji lets out a small exasperated sigh as she serves herself before passing the plate to Miles. Karen picks her chair up and sits down, a self-satisfied look on her face.

Mika stands, giving Karen the best stink eye Jayd thinks she's ever seen her give, and moves to her regular seat with a huff. When the plate reaches her, she passes it right past Karen to Jayd. Jayd takes it out of amusement.

Karen picks up her fork, stabs at Mika's hand.

"A moment's peace," Ji says to Antonetta meaningfully, peppering her fish, "Is all I pray for."

Karen's fork goes flying into the wall, very nearly hitting a decades old Kanji scroll.

"My prayers," Ji sighs dramatically, "Have so far gone unanswered."

* * *

He hates it when she does this. They'll all be enjoying a pleasant conversation in the evening, or watching a movie, or sometimes playing a game, and Karen's hand will somehow find its way into his hair.

It's perfectly platonic, Miles knows, and Karen has told him how soft and fine his hair is, and how envious she is. Her own hair is impossible, she insists, and the way she styles it is the only way she can manage to look like a girl and not have an afro. It's done in tight curly rings around her face, and Mile's doesn't think it looks bad.

But he still doesn't see why she has to do this all the time. It makes him sleepy, and makes him unable to pay attention to anything going on. Of course, it feels wonderful, and he doesn't really hate it, but dammit, he hadn't seen this movie, and he knows he's been spaced out for at least ten minutes, Karen's hand weaving idle patterns across his scalp.

He pulls out his samurizer, punches in her blue symbol. _Karen_, he texts with one hand. _Stahp_.

Behind him on the couch, Karen pulls her hand away from his hair to check her phone. _Hush_, she texts back, and when he reads it she whaps him lightly across the back of his head before going back to playing with his hair.

Miles resigns himself to leaning his head against her leg and re-watching the movie another time.

He glances over at the loveseat, where Antonetta and Jayd had sandwiched themselves in with a bowl of popcorn. The popcorn is discarded on the floor, and Antonetta is passed out on Jayd's shoulder. They're cuddled together in that really comfortable way they have about them, the one no one questions.

Mika and Emmitt are sprawled on a blanket on the floor, and Mika has been ignoring the movie for the better part of an hour in favor of doodling on Emmitt's arm with gel-pens.

She sits up, to get a better angle probably, and blocks the TV. Miles feels himself holding his breath to see what will happen.

"Down in front," Karen hisses, but there's no malice in her voice now. She's probably too tired, Miles thinks amusedly, and he relaxes.

"Careful," Mika warns from her spot over Emmitt, "Or you'll be getting a sparkly rainbow tattoo of your own."

"Can I have one?" Jayd asks quietly from her spot beneath Antonetta.

Mika smiles. "It'll cost ya," she warns happily.

"Yeah," Karen agrees, "One order of snark with a side of catty."

"She's learning," Emmitt smiles, his eyes still focused on the TV.

Mika turns her head toward Karen. "You want a heart with 'Mom' through it or a barbed wire arm band?"

"What, no options for _My Little Pony_?" Miles asks, his words a little slurred from sleepiness.

"Pussy," Mika accuses, and Karen turns the volume on the TV up a few notches.

Mika finishes whatever she was drawing on Emmitt's arm, and then shuffles over to Jayd and Antonetta's couch. She picks up Jayd's bare foot and sets it in her lap, and then proceeds to draw a vine with sparkling pink and gold flowers up her ankle.

When Mika starts coming towards them, Miles pushes himself out of reach of Karen's hand and takes Mika's former spot next to Emmitt. He's getting out of the crosshairs for this, and he's just sleepy enough that he might be able to pass out on the floor. He takes a look at Emmitt's arm while he's at it, though, and see's a bright yellow sun and a dark blue moon and a wolf's head in orange. They're pretty good, actually, for being in sparkly rainbow gel pen.

To his surprise, he doesn't hear a struggle behind him. After a few moments, he looks back to see Karen patiently holding her arm out for Mika, who is biting her lip like this is the _best gift ever_. She's opted for the barbed wire arm band, he notices.

"Tona's gonna be so sad she missed the sparkly tattoos," Jayd whispers.

"Who says she's gonna miss it?" Mika wants to know.

By the time they go to bed, they all have sparkling tattoos of one sort or another.


	2. Chapter 2

That, she decides, had not been a very good battle.

She's the only one unscathed, and it's only because she got there late. She feels guilty about that, of course, but she's also horribly busy trying to get everyone back to the Shiba house to get patched up, and it's hard to support five people all at once.

Jayd, of course, managed to grin and bear it, walking on what's probably a dislocated ankle and holding a hand to her bruised and broken ribs like it's nothing. Antonetta doesn't know how she does it.

Antonetta is a huge baby. She gets a paper cut and she whines for an hour. But the others… they take beatings like it's their purpose in life. She really hopes she never gets injured that badly, because they'll never hear the end of it.

Do Power Rangers get sick days, she wonders as she watches Mentor bustle between the five of them with ice packs and bandages and warm compresses.

She has to help Mentor pop Karen's shoulder back in place, and the sound it makes, the sickening 'clop' and then the gushing of Karen's breathing in relief, makes Antonetta's stomach turn.

Emmitt has a large cut on the side of his thigh, and she gets set doctoring that while Mentor handles the bigger injuries.

"This is probably going to sting," she warns, trying to be cheerful.

Emmitt, who is holding an ice pack to his head, nods and tries to smile back. There's pain in it, though, but if anyone can be trusted to be cheerful at times like these, it's Emmitt, Antonetta thinks.

"Was the Nighlock destroyed?" Ji asks, and Antonetta realizes she's talking to her.

"Yes," she answers quickly, "I finished him off with the fire smasher."

"Good," Ji says, but she sounds reproachful. "Maybe we'll get lucky and have twenty four hours for the rest of the rangers to heal."

Antonetta wants to object, to explain how it wasn't her fault that she was late, that she didn't hear her morpher, that when she did, she'd had to choose between rushing to the rangers side and helping a lost, crying little girl find her mother.

She doesn't though. She bites her lip and peroxides Emmitt's cut. She knows it won't make a difference in Ji's opinion of her. Especially not right now, when she's attending to Jayd with the carefulness of a worried mother.

"Here," she hears Mika mutter, and she catches her passing Karen an ice pack out of the corner of her eye.

"Who's next?" Ji demands, having patched Jayd up to an acceptable standard.

Antonetta isn't even finished with Emmitt's leg. She knows it's not a competition, but she tries to hurry.

They have the rangers patched up in about half an hour, and Ji sends them all off to rest and heal.

When they're gone, Antonetta turns to her, expecting a punishment.

Ji is washing her hands off from the ointments and blood. "I don't think I need to say anything here," she says quietly, in that disappointed parent voice she does so well. "Do you?"

"No, ma'am," Antonetta replies, and she gets a look at the 'ma'am'.

"It's Mentor, or Ji," she warns, and her lips twist up a little bit in a small smile. "I'm not that old."

Antonetta lets herself relax a little bit. She tries to smile back at Ji.

"Now," she says, picking up her stick, "I bet everyone is hungry. Why don't you make them some soup?"

And if soup is the only punishment she'll receive for her screw up, Antonetta will happily cook soup until the end of time.

* * *

She doesn't know quite how Mika manages it, but somehow, the green samurai sneaks up on her. She nearly jumps out of her skin with Mika's head whips into her side vision with a look that is serious and demanding.

"You're supposed to be resting," Mika scolds, her eyes narrow.

Karen clutches at her aching chest, the quick movement of panic at Mika's appearance protesting in her ribs. "What is the matter with you?"

Mika raises an eyebrow. "This is exactly why you should be in bed."

Karen glares at her. "I was fine until you showed up. I swear, you're trying to kill me." Karen goes back to clicking at the computer with the hand not cradling her ribs.

"What are you doing?" Mika asks, and she settles herself on the arm of Karen's chair, apparently taking Karen's refusal to rest as an invitation.

"Working on Zord transformations," Karen says, and she zooms out so that Mika can see the entire schematic she's compiled.

"Anyone ever tell you you're a workaholic?" Mika wonders, inspecting the designs.

"Anyone ever tell you you're obnoxious?" Karen demands back in the same curious tone.

"You," Mika smiles, not taking her eyes off the screen. "Every damn day."

"Is it sinking in yet?" Karen wants to know with a small smile.

If they didn't have to be samurai, if their situation wasn't so intense and serious, Karen imagines she might actually get along with Mika. She's the kind of girl Karen's always admired, though she'll never admit it out loud- carefree, confident, beautiful. Maybe, she thinks, in another life, they might not drive each other up the wall. Well, not all the time, anyway.

If Mika could only take her seriously sometimes, could just understand why Karen works so hard at everything she does… but Mika usually seems more interested in making Karen's work look easy than in doing any of her own.

"These are really good," Mika says, pulling back from the screen. "Didn't know you knew so much about the zords."

"Miles and I work on it a lot," Karen admits, feeling suddenly sheepish. "He has a cousin who's a brilliant cybernetic developer. The designs are mostly mine, but Miles figures out how to get the overall functions to work."

Mika purses her lips, looks like she wants to say something, but doesn't.

Karen doesn't want to ask, but. "What?"

Mika grins down at her. "You're always ragging on my creativity when it comes to traditional things like sword work or symbol power," Mika says ruefully, "And then you're a secret artist. Just enjoying the irony."

Karen frowns. "It's not art," she objects, looking at her zord designs. "Its mechanics, and functionality, and puzzling out combinations."

"It's art," Mika says dismissively, and then she reaches out and presses CTRL + S to save it, and closes the laptop on Karen. "Now come on, you still have three cracked ribs and a swollen arm socket. To bed."

"Since when," Karen wants to know, reaching to open her laptop and having her hand batted away, "Are you the resident nurse?"

Mika stops her by putting a hand to Karen's forehead. She's about to jerk away when Mika says, "You still have a cut on your forehead. Netta must have missed it."

Mika drops her hand, and reaches over to the water bottle on the desk in from of Karen. She grabs it and a small paper towel sitting there, douses the paper towel, and then reaches out with one hand to cup Karen's chin and hold her steady, while the other applies the cool napkin to her miniscule cut.

Karen doesn't move, let's Mika doctor her in a rare show of kindness and solidarity. She watches the way Mika's eye float over the cut, her lips parting gently in easy concentration. Mika can be, at times, surprisingly caring. It's never the sort of thing Karen expects from the loud, unabashed green ranger.

"There," Mika says, letting Karen's chin go and putting the rust colored paper towel into the trash. "At least it's clean."

"Thanks," Karen manages, and then Mika is standing, and she holds out her hand to help Karen up.

Karen takes it with her good hand, lets Mika pull her to her feet, and even lets her keep holding it to steady her as they walk from the office area back to the living quarters.

"Stop being nice to me," Karen warns when they reach her door. "It's gonna make it difficult to kick your ass in practice tomorrow."

Mika laughs. "My ulterior motive has been discovered!"

Karen lets herself grin as Mika drops her hand and walks backwards down the hall.

"If I get up and find you at the computer again, I won't be this nice," Mika says, and she trails down the hallway to her own room, where she waves at Karen before she enters and shuts her door behind her.

Karen rolls her eyes and attempts to go to bed. She ignores the way her hand twitches every time she thinks about Mika holding it.

* * *

They get up early Saturday mornings when everyone else sleeps in. It's nothing unusual for Emmitt; he grew up on a farm, and is used to waking before the sun. Miles complains though, having lived the life of a spoiled rich kid up until becoming a samurai, but he still always gets up.

Because Miles makes the effort, Emmitt makes the coffee. Miles always gives him the same happy hum as he slings his pink rope over his shoulder, and Emmitt hauls their black Shiba duffle bag onto his.

It takes about twenty minutes to get to the gym, during which they don't usually talk much. Miles uses the time to wake up, and sometimes he comments about Emmitt's cheerful humming, but for the most part its silence.

When they reach the gym though, Miles snaps to alert, and the two of them go about rigging up their equipment and rubbing their hands in the chalk.

It's not really competitive so much as companionable, but occasionally Miles will reach over with his foot and try to trip up Emmitt's grip, which will make Emmitt laugh as he tries to climb away from him.

The climbing was one of those things they decided to do simply because the girls wouldn't want to. The early hours had deterred Mika. The repetitiveness had dissuaded Karen after a few tries; if she couldn't excel at it immediately or it wasn't a competition, she didn't want much to do with it. Jayd had taken the hint, and lets the boys have their fun.

They've never actually asked Antonetta, he thinks, but she's usually fishing by this hour anyhow. He imagines she would be intrigued, but probably not enough to intrude.

And Emmitt really enjoys the climbing, too. It's a nice physical sport, but one that isn't determined by points or tackles. It's about who has the determination to make it to the top.

"We should hit a real mountain next week," Miles tells him when they get to the top of the expert course and take a breather.

"I don't know," Emmitt says, looking down the twenty feet to the mats. "It seems like the perfect example of things not to be doing when a Nighlock attacks."

Miles grins. "We could manage," he says, waving Emmitt off, and then he unleashes his clasp and starts repelling down the wall. Emmitt follows.

"What," Emmitt asks when they reach the ground and start unhooking their ropes, "the practice courses getting boring for you?"

Miles shakes his head noncommittally. "Nah," he says, and he shrugs out of his black tank top and into a light pink T-shirt. "I wouldn't let you drag me out of bed this early if I was bored."

Someone whistles at them, and Miles rolls his eyes. Emmitt grins, takes a swig of his water bottle.

"I swear," Miles says, annoyed, "Sometimes it makes me want to go hit on them and play some gay chicken."

Emmitt laughs, puts his things back into their shared duffle. He feels bad for Miles sometimes. It's not like he can _not_ wear his color, and sometimes just wearing it under other clothes isn't enough to keep the jitters away. But people are weird, and they see a good looking, bulked up guy wearing pink, and assume things.

Of course, the fact that they're always together here and share a duffle probably says something, too.

"I've told you before," Emmitt says, as they nod to the woman behind the counter and make their way out of the 24 hour gym. "I will happily be your body prop if you ever want to put on a show and shut them up."

Miles smiles widely. "I'm not sure sucking your face would shut anyone up," he says, and he reaches out and pushes Emmitt's shoulder playfully.

Emmitt lets him, stumbles away a little bit and grins.

The morning is quickly filling up with people now that the sun is up, and the parks are already full of screaming children. The weekend farmers market is open and bustling, too, and Miles stops to peak his head around some of the stalls and see what's for sale. Emmitt doesn't mind, but he tries to keep his head down. Farming is a relatively small community, and while he knows his dad won't be there, other people who know him might.

It's not that he wouldn't be happy to see them, if just that, well… he'd be sad too.

Because he really misses being on a farm. It sounds stupid, probably, missing cleaning stables and trying to repair decade old tractors. Especially when he's come here, to this beautiful city, and has all the opportunities in the world at his feet while he trains. But he still misses it.

Miles comes back with a small bag of exotic fruit. "Yum," Emmitt says, eyeing the bag suspiciously.

They make it back to the Shiba house just as everyone else is coming into the kitchen for breakfast.

Mika gives the bag of fruit Miles is carrying a wary eye. When Miles strikes up a conversation with Ji, Mika tugs on Emmitt's pant pocket and hisses, "What did you let him buy?"

Emmitt shakes his head with a grin, whispers back, "I have no idea. It's not my fault!"

"We've talked about this," Mika warns desperately, giving him a reprimanding look.

Miles pulls a pinkish looking pineapple shaped fruit from the bag while talking to Ji, and even she looks skeptical as she continues scrambling eggs on the stove.

"Oh no," Karen whispers, coming up beside Emmitt with her hands on her hips and giving him a look. "What have we talked about?"

Emmitt shrugs helplessly, wondering why everyone seems to blame him when Miles brings home something disgusting to cook them, like he's supposed to chaperone him or something.

"Think we can talk him out of it?" Mika asks, craning her neck around Emmitt to look at Karen.

She chews her lip thoughtfully. "I think our love/hate thing should 'get out of hand' during training. Maybe we get sent to bed without dinner."

"Deal." Mika agrees, waving her hand and then going to the breakfast table to load up her plate for the day.

Emmitt gives Karen a look. Her lips twitch in response, but then she goes over to the table to eat, and he just shakes his head at them.

As usual, they're going to make sure it's an interesting day.

* * *

"I don't understand," Miles voice says from beside Jayd. "Who is he?"

And Jayd smiles, lets herself go a bit limp in relief as she stares at the man in front of her. "He's my big brother."

She can feel everyone's head craning to look at her, in shock, in disbelief maybe, but all the things she thought she might feel in this moment, all the shame, all the guilt, all the worry… they all disappear as Laurence reaches out to her and puts his hand along her face.

"Hey, lil sis," he says gently, smiling. And she stands, pulls her arms out of Mika and Miles grips, and throws her arms around her big brother, who has finally, finally, come home.


End file.
